Fibrous substrates, e.g. wipes, are known for use in personal care and household cleansing applications. Certain of the known wipes are dry, i.e., they do not include any liquid composition, cleansing or otherwise, impregnated onto or into the fibrous substrate. Other fibrous wipes do include liquid cleansing compositions impregnated onto the fibrous substrate and are referred to herein as wet wipes. Such cleansing compositions may include lathering surfactants and other ingredients for imparting cleansing or other desired properties to the wet wipe. One of the issues with such wet wipes is that the liquid composition may migrate from the fibrous substrate over time, resulting in decreased cleaning efficiency and waste of the cleansing composition.
To address the issue of migration of the liquid cleansing compositions from known wet wipes, certain gel-wipes for use in personal care and household cleansing applications have been disclosed. In some embodiments, such gel-wipes have a liquid portion that includes a thickening or gelling polymer and a thickening or gelling agent. The liquid portion containing the gelling polymer and the gelling agent is then impregnated in the fibrous substrate. In other embodiments, a gelling agent is incorporated into the substrate, followed by application of a liquid portion that contains the gelling polymer to the substrate having the impregnated gelling agent. In both embodiments, due to formation of the gel by the gelling polymer and gelling agent in the presence of the liquid portion, which includes any cleansing agents contained therein, a polymeric gel containing the liquid portion distributed there through is distributed throughout the substrate, including throughout the body or core of the fibers forming the substrate.
While such known gel-wipes are purported to reduce the migration of liquid from the wet-wipes, certain issues still exist with such gel-wipes. For example, as the substrate is entirely impregnated with the polymeric gel containing the cleansing liquid portion, a portion of the cleansing solution will be “bound” within the core body of the fibers where it will provide no cleansing benefit. Additionally, such gel-wipes may use more cleansing liquid portion than is necessary, resulting in waste of cleansing solutions.
It would be advantageous for one to develop a gel-wipe that not only provides as good as or better cleansing efficacy than gel-wipes described above, but that also avoids issues such as fluid migration of known wet wipes as described above. The inventions claimed herein provide such gel-wipes that not only are more efficacious in cleansing compared to known gel-wipes, but also utilize less cleansing solution to achieve efficient cleansing.